The power project is yet to be fully commissioned. But the company has walked a step ahead and planned to go for expansion.
In what appears to be a surreal development, the Lanco Amarkantak Power Private Limited (LAPPL) - a subsidiary of Lanco Group - was going for expansion plan ironically before commissioning its power project in Korba district of Chhattisgarh.
The result, people’s resentment spilled out in open and company’s expansion plan ran into troubled water. Following people’s project, the state authorities cancelled the public hearing that literally put the expansion of LAPPL’s power project from 1,920 Mw to 3,240 Mw on hold.
The company has set up power station in Pathadi village on the outskirts of Korba city. The 1920-Mw LAPPL power station has two units of 300-Mw each and two units of 660-Mw each—about 220 km from here. Under the expansion programme, the company had planned to enhance the capacity from 1920-Mw to 3240-Mw by installing fifth and sixth unit of 660-Mw each.
The first two units of the company have been commissioned while the work of third and fourth units was in progress. Before the power project was set up, the LAPPL was planning expansion of the project by adding 1320-Mw additional capacity. The impatience and haste showed by the company had even stunned the government authorities.
“The company was going for an expansion plan before putting the things in order as it had failed to execute the rehabilitation programme for the villagers,” Regional Officer of Chhattisgarh Environment Conservation Board (CECB) B S Thakur said. The LAPPL appeared to be in a hurry and wanted to complete the work at the earliest, he added.
Had the company won over the villagers by implementing rehabilitation packages and other welfare programme, it would have not faced resistance from the people in the public hearing held on October 2011, Thakur said. Even the land acquisition by the company had reportedly put it under the scanner. The matter took a grave proportion when state’s home minister Nankiram Kanwar had to himself intervene and struck at the site to stop the construction work going on at the encroached land.
The company’s expansion plan had now gone under the cold carpet. The environment activists are however raising serious question and inevitability of going for the expansion when the company had set aside all the norms.
“The company’s power plant is yet to fully start and the proposal of expanding the unit is something one cannot understand,” Laxmi Chouhan, director of Sarthak—a Non Government Organisation (NGO) working on environmental issues—said. The LAPPL was keeping all the norms at bay while the authorities were looking the other way, he added.
According to Chouhan, the company was supposed to get coal reserve within six months of starting the first unit. The second unit had also been commissioned but the company had failed to arrange coal reserve for its plant. Even the company had failed to design any plan for ash utilization.
Chouhan said there was no plan for the utilization of the ash even as work on third and fourth units was in progress. Before making the basic arrangement, the company was going for the expansion plan that was totally unjustifiable, he added. The Lanco group however did not respond to the mail and reminder sent by the Business Standard for its versions on the issue. The spokesperson later said the company would not respond to the queries.